The Woman in Valencia by Annie Perreault (book recommendations website txt) 📗

like in an echo chamber. With each pulse, a realization emerges, trite and terrifying, rousing her from her stupor: It’s been a long time since she’s felt so oddly alive and peaceful. Claire wonders if it wasn’t this deep-seated sense of calm that she came looking for in Valencia.

KILOMETRE 38

… I’m slowing down, I don’t know how to keep moving forward, four kilometres, twenty-odd minutes, now’s not the time to throw in the towel, keep going, stay on pace, five minutes forty seconds per kilometre, pump your arms, pump your arms, pump them! Go on, catch up to that girl, right there, in front of you…

Run, go on, run like a free woman, Laure!

KILOMETRE 39

… I’m losing all sense of distance, time, I don’t know how many more minutes to go, I can’t give up so close to the finish line, my legs hurt, everything hurts, I’m thirsty, I’m burning up from the soles of my feet to the top of my scorching head, a vein throbs in the hollow of my neck, I can’t take it anymore…

THE SEA AT NIGHT

It’s their last night together. Claire is due to catch the 10 a.m. train to Madrid, where she’ll connect with her flight home. Manuel has made her saffron rice with chicken, peas, sliced onion. But the pan is getting cold on the stove. His guest is late and not answering his text messages. He’s starting to get worried.

Earlier that day, after dropping his car off with the mechanic, he’d wandered aimlessly around Valencia, checking his phone obsessively, waiting for her at a café, hoping to spot her on one of the boulevards, desperate for any kind of reassurance: She mustn’t have checked her phone, must’ve thought his trip to the garage would take longer. She must be out exploring Valencia, taking her time.

Claire had got lost trying to find the sea. She’d walked for ages, initially in the wrong direction. Then she’d caught a bus without thinking to ask where it was going. She’d walked some more, her skin turning redder by the hour. She hadn’t eaten and surprisingly wasn’t very hungry. She felt abstract, like one of those heroines in a movie or a novel who wanders through the city streets with her face shuttered, indifferent to virtually everything. Why go looking for the beach? She was in no mood for sunbathing. She’d be all alone there. Still, she wanted to see the place again because her only memory of it was a dull, grey seascape shrouded in fog.

Eventually, she’d found a tram stop. She’d followed the crowd of young girls, ponytails swaying, tanned skin glowing, beach bags slung over their shoulders. She’d boarded behind them without buying a ticket, gotten off at the same station. Then she’d kept walking, a ways away from the sea, in front of the cafés and shops, casting a sideways glance at the long expanse of sand. This is what she’d come here to see: the long shot. She didn’t care about the waves, the water, the bodies stretched out on towels, the sand. All she wanted was a horizon, a tableau of vanishing points, a mental postcard of the beach in Valencia. In the distance, parasols. Around the edges, tacky souvenir stands. The beach a nondescript rectangle of sand.

*

The hours tick by with no news from Claire. Manuel doesn’t understand why she’s running away from him like this. He’d have liked to spend as much time as possible with her before she left, to have her in his sights, in his arms. He wants her. He can’t stop pacing. He wishes the door would swing open, now, right this minute, and she’d walk through it wearing that dress that hugs all her curves; he would nip at her shoulders, nuzzle her neck, get reacquainted with the sweet wetness between her legs. He’s starting to feel possessive about a woman he’ll never see again.

Claire gets back around 6 p.m. She’s shocked that he’s waited for her this whole time.

“I’m sweaty and I’m exhausted,” she protests, as he wraps an arm around her waist to pull her close.

“I was worried about you,” he murmurs into her hair.

Jerking free of his embrace, she says, “Don’t worry about me, ever. Alright, I need to cool off. I’m going back downstairs for a quick dip.”

Manuel would like to keep her from leaving, but he doesn’t know how. Her aloofness throws him off. He’d have liked to go with her, but he’s too absorbed in his own sulking.

“Don’t be long,” he says. “I want to take you to watch the sunset at that place in the marsh where they rent the rowboats.”

He steps out onto the balcony to watch her as she wades into the sea. Her shoulders are hunched as the waves break around her waist. Her back is magnificent, and even at this distance the urge to wrap his arms around her is visceral.

Claire returns, smiling and refreshed, her hair dripping. She pulls off her bikini top, and her pert, pink nipples, hard and puckered, spring up to greet Manuel. Now that she’s naked, she’s another woman entirely walking around the apartment, liberated, vibrant.

“Not to rush you, but we’ll need to leave soon if we want to get there in time to rent a rowboat.”

She looks at him, unsure.

“Do you think I could run there?”

She’d like to get a run in before dark. She’s doing her best to follow her training program to the letter and not skip any of her five weekly runs. She throws on a pair of shorts and a tank top, slathers sunscreen on her face, arms and legs already burnt from her day of walking. She straps on her watch, and they walk together to the bus stop. Manuel doesn’t want to drive because he thinks it’ll be hard to find parking. The sunset, like all sunsets everywhere in